From 1 October 2026, the reserve price on a Victorian residential auction stops being a secret.
The Consumer Legislation Amendment Bill 2026 passed both houses of Victorian Parliament in late August. It inserts new sections 47AG to 47AI into the Estate Agents Act 1980, and the effect is simple. Your agent has to ask you for your reserve in writing, publish it at least seven days before the auction or fixed date sale, and if it has not been published in time, the auction cannot go ahead.
This is the biggest change to how Melbourne auctions work in years. Here is what it actually says, what is still unclear, and what it means if you are buying or selling this spring.
What the new rules require
- The reserve must be requested in writing. The agent has to ask the vendor for their reserve price in writing before the auction or fixed date sale.
- It must be published at least seven days out. Not disclosed on request. Published.
- Advertising has to be brought into line straight away. Once the agent has the reserve, marketing that does not reflect it has to be amended or withdrawn, and the drafting gives agents about a day to do it.
- No publication, no auction. It is an offence for an agent or agent representative to run the auction or fixed date sale if the reserve was not published seven days prior.
Final sale prices are also being made public under the same package of reforms.
The change sits inside a broader underquoting crackdown. The Victorian underquoting taskforce has issued more than 200 infringements worth over $2.3 million in fines and is being made permanent. Underquoting penalties already run past $48,000 plus loss of commission.
Where you will actually see the reserve
The Act requires the agent to publish the number, and requires advertising that does not carry it to be pulled or corrected. In practice that means the reserve turns up wherever the property is already being advertised: the portal listing, the agent website, and the campaign material.
The finer detail of exactly how and where it has to appear is expected to sit in regulations and Consumer Affairs Victoria guidance rather than in the Act itself, and that guidance is still to land. If you are selling in October, ask your agent to show you their process for it rather than assuming they have one.
Can the vendor change the reserve after publishing it?
This is the question everyone is asking, and the honest answer is that the Act does not spell it out.
There is no express provision allowing a seller to raise or lower the reserve after it has been published. What the Act does say is that it is an offence to run the auction unless the reserve was published seven days beforehand. So if the number changes inside that final week, the figure sitting in the advertising is no longer the reserve, and the auction is exposed.
The practical effect is that the reserve is locked. Not because the law bans changing it in so many words, but because there is no clean way to change it and still hold the auction on the day you planned. Vendors lose the ability to nudge the reserve up on auction morning based on the size of the crowd, and that is the point of the reform.
If you are selling, treat the reserve as final the moment it is published, and get advice from your conveyancer if your circumstances change mid campaign.
What it does not change
The reserve is not a valuation. It is the number a vendor will sell at on the day. It can be set high, low, or nowhere near what the market will pay. A published reserve tells you what the vendor wants. It does not tell you what the property is worth, and it does not tell you what it will sell for.
Statement of Information and indicative price range obligations still apply. The reserve sits on top of the existing quoting rules, it does not replace them.
And nothing forces a vendor to sell. A property can still pass in, and the negotiation that follows is still where a lot of Melbourne buyers get their result.
What this means if you are buying
Less money wasted on properties you were never going to get. This is the genuine win. Building and pest inspections, contract reviews and conveyancing costs add up fast, and plenty of buyers have spent that money on a home quoted at $1.2m to $1.3m that had a reserve of $1.45m. From October, you will know before you spend.
A tighter due diligence window. Seven days is not long. If the reserve lands on the Saturday before auction and it changes your view of the property, you have a week to get an inspector through and a contract reviewed, in the busiest part of a spring campaign. The practical answer is to do your due diligence on the assumption you will bid, not on the assumption the reserve will suit you.
Expect defensively high reserves, at least early on. If a vendor has to publish a number a week out and cannot move it, some will set it higher than they otherwise would to protect themselves. A published reserve that looks ambitious is not always a reason to walk. It is a reason to look harder at the comparable sales and work out whether the number is real.
Bidding may start closer to the reserve. Where a reserve is published and credible, there is less reason for the slow, tactical opening bids that have become normal in Melbourne. Auctions may get shorter and more direct. That suits prepared buyers and punishes anyone still working out their limit in the crowd.
More properties may move away from auction. The Real Estate Institute of Victoria has argued vendors will shift to private sale and expressions of interest to avoid publishing a number. If that happens, off market campaigns and private treaty negotiation matter more, not less, and buyers who only watch the auction calendar will see less of the market.
What this means if you are selling
The reserve decision moves forward by a week, and it becomes public.
That takes away a lever vendors have relied on for a long time, which is reading the crowd on the morning and adjusting. From October, the number you give your agent in writing is the number the market sees, so it has to be right the first time.
Three things get more important:
- Evidence over hope. Your reserve needs to be built off genuine recent comparable sales and campaign feedback, not off what you would like to achieve. There is no correcting it on the day.
- Timing your feedback. The useful buyer feedback in a four week campaign often arrives in the last ten days. Under the new rules, some of it will arrive after your reserve is already public.
- Method of sale. Auction is still the right call for a lot of properties, particularly where there is genuine scarcity and competition. For others, private sale or an expressions of interest campaign will now look more attractive. That is a decision worth making deliberately rather than by default, and it is one of the first things we work through with vendor advocacy clients.
How we are approaching it at LP Advisory
For buyers, our process does not really change. We were already valuing properties independently, checking the quoted range against real comparable sales and telling clients when a campaign was priced to attract rather than to sell. The published reserve is one more data point, and a useful one, but it is not a substitute for knowing what a property is worth to you.
For vendors, the work moves earlier. Setting a defensible reserve a week out, with the evidence behind it, is exactly the piece most sellers find hardest when they are talking to the agent who is also selling them the campaign. If you want to understand what that support costs, we have set it out separately.
The first auctions under the new rules land in early October, in the middle of the busiest selling season of the year. It is worth getting your position sorted before then.
Frequently asked questions
When do the new reserve price rules start in Victoria?
1 October 2026. The Consumer Legislation Amendment Bill 2026 passed both houses of Victorian Parliament in late August 2026 and inserts new sections 47AG to 47AI into the Estate Agents Act 1980.
Do agents have to publish the reserve price for every property?
The requirement applies to residential property sold by auction or fixed date sale. The agent must publish the vendor reserve at least seven days before the auction or fixed date of sale, and it is an offence to run the sale without having done so.
Can a vendor change the reserve after it is published?
Not in any practical sense. The legislation does not contain an express right to vary a published reserve, and it is an offence to conduct the auction unless the reserve was published seven days beforehand. A change inside the final week puts the auction itself at risk, so vendors should treat the published reserve as final and get advice from their conveyancer if circumstances change.
Where will the reserve price be published?
Wherever the property is advertised. The agent has to publish the reserve and bring the marketing into line, and advertising that does not reflect it has to be amended or withdrawn. The detail of exactly how it must appear is expected in regulations and Consumer Affairs Victoria guidance.
Does the reserve price tell me what a property is worth?
No. The reserve is the price the vendor will sell at, not an independent valuation. A property can sell well above a low reserve, or pass in below a high one. You still need your own view of value before you bid.
Will this stop underquoting in Melbourne?
It makes one form of it much harder, because a quoted range sitting well below the reserve will now be visible to every buyer a week before the auction. It does not change what a property is worth or how competitive the bidding is on the day.
Will vendors move away from auctions because of this?
Some will. Industry bodies expect a shift towards private sale and expressions of interest campaigns. For buyers that means watching more than the auction calendar, and it makes off market and pre auction access more valuable.
This article is general information about changes to Victorian property law and is not legal advice. For advice on your own sale or purchase, speak to your conveyancer or solicitor.
